This will hurt me...

Cat. Theatre Royal car park, Campbell Street, Hobart. September 2013. Sunday Book Club? That's right, SUNDAY Book Club! Great Granny Webster , Caroline Blackwood: What an odd little book. Essentially a psychological analysis of how one person (in this case the obdurate matriarch of a clan) can inflict emotional damage across generations. The titular Great Granny is stuck in the "correctness" of her own Victorian youth. Her daughter is driven mad and talks to the fairies. Her granddaughter parties all night, smokes all day, and parties obsessively. She also constantly attempts suicide. Deceptively concise, this one is a sleeper. Recommended. B . Strangers on the 16:02 , Priya Basil: A short novel, this reads more like synopsis for a new novel than a complete work. Painted in broad strokes, it does a reasonable job in constructing three very different characters, reaching a climax between the three, then it ends. Frustrating. C- . I, Claudius , Robert Graves: R...

Divorcee? Colville Street, Battery Point. August 2013. PEACE.

Political comment. Elizabeth Street, North Hobart. July 2013. Master Georgie , Beryl Bainbridge: This book won a lot of prizes, and it isn't hard to see why. Novel represents a unique glimpse at a character from a prism of lenses formed by those around him. This conceit works well and it allows Bainbridge to really explore three very different narrative voices. Not for everyone, as the author showcases a real mastery of technique here that can be quite challenging at times. However, if you love reading, you should love this book. A . The Second Tree from the Corner , E.B. White: A collection of literary miscellanea, some dated, some prescient. Uneven. C . Poodle Springs , Raymond Chandler (and Robert B. Parker): Private dick settles down, but circumstances won't let him. This was Chandler's last novel, incomplete at his death and finished by Parker. It's okay, if somewhat hackneyed. C .

Angry sticker #1. Paternoster Row, North Hobart. July 2013. Another one from Ezra! Lament of the Frontier Guard , Ezra Pound By the North Gate, the wind blows full of sand, Lonely from the beginning of time until now! Trees fall, the grass goes yellow with autumn. I climb the towers and towers to watch out the barbarous land: Desolate castle, the sky, the wide desert. There is no wall left to this village. Bones white with a thousand frosts, High heaps, covered with trees and grass; Who brought this to pass? Who has brought the flaming imperial anger? Who has brought the army with drums and with kettle-drums? Barbarous kings. A gracious spring, turned to blood-ravenous autumn, A turmoil of wars-men, spread over the middle kingdom, Three hundred and sixty thousand, And sorrow, sorrow like rain. Sorrow to go, and sorrow, sorrow returning, Desolate, desolate fields, And no children of warfare upon them, No longer the men for offence and defence. Ah,...

Art #1. Bathurst Street Car Park, Hobart. February 2013. As you know, the Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (and RSS feeds.) The following are some things that I've had a look at in the last week. I call this: a Compendium of Click-throughs for Monday Morning... This one explores the history of neurasthenia or “invalidism”, a curious mid-nineteenth-century chapter in the story of the emancipation of women . This one is a bitter-sweet collection of photographs of Afghanistan in the 1960s . Our local museum is now offering a collection of 100 objects that help us understand and explain Tasmania . The point of universities? "James' Giant Peach Transport Across the Atlantic" , a in the Journal of Physics Special Topics . "In the US since 1998, for every time a woman used a handgun to kill in self-defence, 101 women were murdered with a handgun." Women, Handguns, and Self-Defence: A Deadly ...

We're struggling. Mawson's Place, Argyle Street, Hobart. January 2013. As you know, the Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (and RSS feeds.) The following are some things that I've had a look at in the last week. I call this: a Compendium of Click-throughs for Monday Morning... Sitting Is the Smoking of Our Generation. Dads Caring for Their Kids: It's Parenting, Not Babysitting. Toys and games: Are we paying for products that teach? Misogyny stinks, but we need to say more than 'This is horrible, poor us'. Celebrating Cassandre: Gorgeous Vintage Posters by One of History’s Greatest Graphic Designers.

Conspiracies abound. The Intercity Cycleway, just south of the Tasman Bridge. December 2012. Theme Thursday today has me musing on the tendency for people to look for the RHYTHM of things. The currents that explain life. They find cadences, intervals and melodies in way that things work (or don't work). Ultimately, in this disordered world I'm never ceased to be surprised by the ceaseless desire that many have for find order, explanations or RHYTHM to the flows of history and events. To be sure, it's usually some combination of a profound lack of intelligence or a missing reflective capacity to understand or interpret things. Or indeed it can be the (more dangerous, to my mind) product of both misguided and excessive educations. It's the only explanation that I have for the common feature of conspiracy theories, shadowy explanations or totalising, panoptic ideological theories behind the (quite simple really) messed up and confused nature of reality. Basically...

Shouting giraffe. Howrah bike path, Howrah. November 2012. We're off to some long forgotten beach today to test the fellas out with yet another treck around some cliffs. Ezra doesn't know it yet, but I'm preparing him for a couple of decent hikes in January up and down some of Tasmania's finest East Coast National Parks ... Meanwhile, enjoy a poem. To Friends behind a Frontier , Tomas Transtromer I I wrote so meagrely to you. But what I couldn't write swelled and swelled like an old-fashioned airship and drifted away at last through the night sky. II The letter is now at the censor's. He lights his lamp. In the glare my words fly up like monkeys on a grille, rattle it, become still, and bare their teeth. III Read between the lines. We'll meet in 200 years when the microphones in the hotel's walls are forgotten and can at last sleep, become trilobites.

Angel. Kirksway Place, Battery Point. November 2012. Christ I've been busy today...

There's no mystery. Kirksway Place, Sandy Bay/ Battery Point/Hobart border. October 2012. Theme Thursday already and today we are talking CEMETERIES. CEMETERIES, you say? CEMETERIES. A place where the dead are buried. Especially a place that is not attached to a church. Hmmmmm. There must be a few of those place around. CEMETERIES. In Spring. CEMETERIES. Depressing. Some people like CEMETERIES. Some people like being whipped while jack russell terriers lick whipped cream from their pierced nipples. It takes all sorts.

Is it art? Mayfair Plaza car park, Sandy Bay. September 2012. Here is a crop of ten questions for today's Q and A chosen from a neat little randomiser that I designed myself... Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing? At this point, I’m settling. That said, I generally believe in the things that I have to do on a day-to-day basis. I have no problem speaking my mind if work is not being done properly or I find it ethically or intellectually improper. How come the things that make you happy don’t make everyone happy? My gut answer is to blame everyone else (i.e. “because everyone else is wrong!”). I don’t know, probably an inversion of this question might be easier to answer. A lot of people seem to enjoy things that don’t give me much pleasure (i.e. “dining out” or the never-ending parade of new “gizmos and gadgets”). I don’t know. I just like a nice beach, a bit of peace and quiet and something interesting to read. How old would you ...

Boys can be stupid. Sandy Bay Rowing Club, Sandy Bay. August 2012. Higher Ground by Caryl Phillips. A sadly familiar tale repeated three times. The pain of a subjugated identity and the damage it does resonates. Bleak stuff. B+ . Memoirs of a Porcupine by Papa Kibandi. No full stops, no colons, semicolons. No punctuation but commas. Also, the narrator is a porcupine. Not for everyone. A mashup of African folk tale and general craziness. C .

Art? Lindisfarne Bay, Lindisfarne. September 2012. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster: Repressed Edwardian culture. Sharp sketch of the stupidity of the upper classes and the effects of shifting mores. Good stuff. B+

Oh dear. Sandy Bay Road, Sandy Bay. August 2012. Wordless Wednesday.

Word gets around. Sandy Bay Rowing Club, Sandy Bay. August 2012. Wordless Wednesday.

Self portrait?

Someone has been busy. The laneway off Murray Street, Hobart. May 2012. Sunday you say? A top five you're after? Okay. After this picture. Can you make out the name? The laneway off Murray Street, Hobart. May 2012. Continuing on the graffiti theme, how about My Top Five Bits Of Graffiti Public Art Displays Spotted Out And About In Hobart! More of the same. Words on a wall. The state of the nation. Knitting terrorists. A creative use of the locale.

Tasteful? Hunter Street, Hobart. June 2012. This one was spotted right out the front of Hobart's Art School. Seriously, it was. Tenebrae , Paul Celan We are near, Lord, near and at hand. Handled already, Lord, clawed and clawing as though the body of each of us were your body, Lord. Pray, Lord, pray to us, we are near. Wind-awry we went there, went there to bend over hollow and ditch. To be watered we went there, Lord. It was blood, it was what you shed, Lord. It gleamed. It cast your image into our eyes, Lord. Our eyes and our mouths are open and empty, Lord. We have drunk, Lord. The blood and the image that was in the blood, Lord. Pray, Lord. We are near.

Public art or graffiti? Does it matter? In the lane-way off 99 Bathurst Street, Hobart. May 2012. Here's a book review. The Battle for History: Re-fighting World War II , essentially an extended literature review on the subject by British military historian John Keegan. Give that well over half a century has passed since the end of World War II; it strikes many as surprising that historians are still struggling to define it. I’m not sure why people are all that surprised, given the infinite angles and interpretations that can be applied to the events of the period (especially when one considers the ways in which the world was irrevocably altered). In assessing the general histories, Keegan manages to illustrate the extent to which our past – including how we think about it, interpret it and define it – dictates our present. Each chapter covers separate approaches to the topic, including overall histories of the war, biographies, distinct campaigns, the intelligence war, logis...

There is some halfway decent grafitti about town, you just have to know where to look. The lane-way just off Murray Street out by Centrepoint. May 2012. Tuesday means questions and answers, this week back to thieving from Sunday Stealing with The Imaginary Meme, Part One ! 1. Have you ever peed your pants as an adult? Not that I am aware of. 2. Who do you have a celebrity crush on now? I am not certain that I even know any relevant celebrities at the moment. I will be frank and say that celebrity status in itself is a bit of a turn off. 3. Would you date someone you met online? Only if my wife said that it was okay. 4. Do you wear underwear always? Not always. I like to hang free every now and again. 5. Do you hate yourself at times? Never hate. Occasionally I don’t fully approve of myself. 7. Do you like dirty movies? It really depends on the quality of the acting… 8. Could you believe Josha Ledet was voted off Idol? Who what now? 9. When was the last time t...